'Dilli hai bhai sabki dhadkan': Delhi falls back in love with football after 7 years

New Delhi: Rain was in the air on Thursday evening in New Delhi. After a day of heavy rain, the drizzle had brought the mercury down. At the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, only a few seats were occupied before the momentous occasion: a Delhi-based club playing a home game in Indian football’s top division. It had been 2,587 days since Delhi’s own - Delhi Dynamos then - entertained the city’s locals. Now, SC Delhi’s red adorned the stadium with signage, banners and visuals at the main gates. They looked to make the most of this home return for their first win of the season against second-placed Jamshedpur FC in this truncated season of the Indian Super League.

An hour before kick-off, the most noise came from a group of teenagers on the athletics track practising their dance synchronisation to the beats of the dhol. Alongside, multiple youngsters kept the athletics track busy despite the nip in the air. Further along, a group of young men and women posed for selfies while distributing club jerseys to one another.




Large banners of Nora Fernandes, Rafael Ribeiro, Mohammed Aimen, Ayush Adhikari, Lamgoulen Hangshing and Karanjit Singh hung from the ceiling. Close by, kids lined up to side foot the ball into a tiny goal. Each successful attempt was cheered on, and players of the future were slowly being created.

Gate 1 welcomed the club ownership, their invitees and the VIPs. Away from the glitterati, on the opposite side of the huge multi-purpose facility at Gate 10, the actual fans queued up to get inside as the clock ticked on.

A small queue at 7pm — half an hour before kick-off — started to get longer in 15 minutes. One after another, QR codes were scanned, and the sound of beeps filled the air. As is the norm with stadiums across the country, arguments broke out over what was allowed and what wasn’t. Fans jostled with security as the size of their bags dictated what went in and what remained out.

Inside, after another quick check of the digital ticket, a large chunk of fans took their place in one section while a smaller group, possibly of away supporters, was stationed in another section. Chants reverberated in the stadium as players took the field - Delhi in red and black and Jamshedpur FC in the whites. A young man egged the fans on to follow his “purab, paschim, uttar, dakshin” with “Dilli hai bhai sabki dhadkan” and the crowd chimed in with the same level of excitement.

One section in the stadium made way for another as more people trickled in even when the game kicked off. Teenagers, groups of friends and families with young kids were all part of this experience.

The stadium started to bounce in the 21st minute as Joseph Sunny put the hosts ahead, capitalising on an Albino Gomes mistake. A bit of misclearance by Matija Babovic presented the ball to Sunny, whose left-footed strike made its way into the top-left corner.

As the evenly-contested game continued, the crowd persisted and stayed in their seats - for the most part. Some seemingly bored individuals resorted to making paper planes and the action shifted from on-the-pitch to aerial tarmacs.

Yet, the decibel level rose as SC Delhi attacked or made crucial interventions in defence. The boos were equally loud when Jamshedpur FC made numerous forays in the second half. Groups of kids chanted "Free kick! Free kick!" towards the referee whenever an SC Delhi player was brought down.

With rain getting heavier and affecting the lower-level seats, fans walked to seats higher up but never left in abundance. However their - and SC Delhi's - hopes of seeing the first win of the season, the first 3 points, the first home win in 7 years were dashed by a Nikola Stojanovic equaliser in the 89th minute.

With 90 seconds remaining on the clock, the Serb's effort from outside the box took the slightest of deflections and made its way into the back of the net.

The 6,732 fans who made their way to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday would still count this as an evening well spent and manager Tomasz Tchorz acknowledged their presence later.


"There are places in India where you can say that people want football and Delhi is one of them, so I'm very happy. We are very happy that a lot of fans came today. We all have experience of playing with the crowd because either we played away in stadiums which were full or we were working for other clubs with huge fan bases. So I think the presence of fans only helped us today, nothing else," said the Polish manager, who had called the home support as the '12th Player' ahead of the fixture.